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[Biblia Latina].

Venice: Georgius Arrivabenus, 27 Feb. 1487/88, 27 February 1487/88.

Price: $10,000.00

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About the item

[466] leaves, lacking blank leaf a1, "Interpretation of Hebrew Names" (aa8-dd10) bound at beginning of text. 52-line text in two columns, contemporary rubrication, pen flourishes, and initials in red, piece of a contemporary engraved image, with added hand-coloring, pasted into 15-line space at beginning of prologue, contemporary 15-line initial in red at beginning of main text. 4to. Recent morocco, blind rules to boards, raised bands and gilt title to spine, endpapers renewed. Light smoke-staining and a few small burn-spots to sections of binding. Occasional foxing, inkstains and contemporary underlining, marks, and annotations, chapter heads affected in places by trimming. Provenance: General Theological Seminary, gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Dean Augustus Hoffman (bookplates, blindstamps). ISTC ib00586000; Goff B586; GW 4263.

Item #379062

In most respects, this is a fine example of the less-expensive quarto Bibles issued by Venetian printers in the late 1400s for the general marketplace. This copy has an unusual feature. Instead of an iluminated or decorated initial at the beginning of the main text, it has a repurposed section of a woodcut depicting the murder of a sainted bishop, with mitre and halo, by two men in an ecclesiastical setting. The victim is probably Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assassinated in 1170, or Praetextatus, Bishop of Rouen who was assassinated in 586. Both men were assassinated by order of their monarchs in their cathedrals and canonized afterwards, which adds an intriguing element to our copy. Was it owned by someone who opposed royal infringement on Church authority?

The date of this imprint is somewhat vague. The colophon states "Anno dni. Mcccclxxxvij iij. Cal. Martij." The ISTC notes this has been interpreted as 27 February 1487/88 in the BMC and GW and by Sack as 28 February 1487/88, who probably assumed that February 1487 in the Venetian calendar included an extra day on account the leap year of 1488.